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Land-use and land-cover change in Western Ghats of India

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Abstract

The Western Ghats (WG) of India, one of the hottest biodiversity hotspots in the world, has witnessed major land-use and land-cover (LULC) change in recent times. The present research was aimed at studying the patterns of LULC change in WG during 1985–1995–2005, understanding the major drivers that caused such change, and projecting the future (2025) spatial distribution of forest using coupled logistic regression and Markov model. The International Geosphere Biosphere Program (IGBP) classification scheme was mainly followed in LULC characterization and change analysis. The single-step Markov model was used to project the forest demand. The spatial allocation of such forest demand was based on the predicted probabilities derived through logistic regression model. The R statistical package was used to set the allocation rules. The projection model was selected based on Akaike information criterion (AIC) and area under receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. The actual and projected areas of forest in 2005 were compared before making projection for 2025. It was observed that forest degradation has reduced from 1985–1995 to 1995–2005. The study obtained important insights about the drivers and their impacts on LULC simulations. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt where projection of future state of forest in entire WG is made based on decadal LULC and socio-economic datasets at the Taluka (sub-district) level.

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Acknowledgments

The present research was carried out under the Indian Space Research Organisation-Geosphere Biosphere Program (ISRO-GBP), funded by the Department of Space, Govt. of India. Authors are thankful to Department of Space for providing satellite and other ancillary datasets to carry out the research. The support provided by forest departments of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu in carrying out field investigations is acknowledged. Authors acknowledge International Institute of Population Sciences, Mumbai, for providing access to decadal census datasets. The quality control team of C-DAC is acknowledged for their support in preparing the land-use and land-cover maps.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), A Scientific Society of Ministry of Communication and IT, Govt. of India, 5th floor, West End Centre III, Nagras Road, Aundh, Pune, 411007, India

    Manish P. Kale, Manoj Chavan, Satish Pardeshi, Swapnil Chaudhari & Yogesh Giri

  2. Indian Institute of Remote Sensing, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), 4- Kalidas Road, Dehradun, 248001, India

    Chitiz Joshi, Prabhakar A. Verma, S. K. Srivastav & A. K. Jha

  3. Center for Earth & Space Sciences University of Hyderabad P.O. Central University, Hyderabad, 500046, India

    P. S. Roy

  4. National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), Balanagar, Hyderabad, 500042, India

    V. K. Srivastava

  5. Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), Headquarters, Antariksha Bhavan, New BEL Road, Banglore, 560231, India

    Y. V. N. Krishna Murthy

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  1. Manish P. Kale
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  2. Manoj Chavan
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  8. V. K. Srivastava
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  9. A. K. Jha
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  12. Y. V. N. Krishna Murthy
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Correspondence to Manish P. Kale.

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Kale, M.P., Chavan, M., Pardeshi, S. et al. Land-use and land-cover change in Western Ghats of India. Environ Monit Assess 188, 387 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-016-5369-1

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